Suma Root: Health Benefits, Facts, and Myths

What Is Suma Root?

Suma root is an herbaceous vine commonly found in Brazil and other parts of South America. It’s commonly called Brazilian ginseng, suma powder, and the term ginseng can generically refer to suma root as well. The scientific name for the most commonly studied form of suma root is Pfaffia paniculata, although any plant with the prefix Pfaffia is a ginseng/suma root type of plant.

Its Purported Benefits:

The rap on suma root is that it’s been used by native americans and other indigenous peoples in the America’s for hundreds of years to treat illness, improve immunity and hormonal balance, and increase the body’s self-healing abilities. It’s been purported to have cancer-fighting and immuno-stimulating effects.

The Scientific Consensus on Its Purported Benefits:

Research done on the healing effects of suma root suggest that it has mild effects on your body’s adoptogenic abilities and immune system functioning.

For the most part though, the total amount of research done on suma root is scant compared to other popular medicinal herbs and plants like green tea, garlic, or spinach. For example, a search in PubMed for “Brazilian Ginseng” only returns 13 studies, whereas a search for “garlic” returns 3,628. This means any “conclusions” drawn about the health benefits of suma root should be accepted with a healthy dose of doubt because the general nature of these things is that reams of research need to come in over many years from many different angles before people can conclude anything.

So with that said, what’s been studied so far?

Oxidation and Cell Growth

A number of studies conducted with mice demonstrated an ability for suma root (Pfaffia paniculata) to inhibit unhealthy cell growth in the liver. Most of these studies were conducted at the University of Sao Paolo between 2004-2009 and the results were fairly consistent: in vitro, mouse cells treated with brazilian ginseng extract showed slower cell growth and an increased rate of apoptosis (“cell death”). However, the mechanism for how this works is still largely unknown. When discussing the results, the authors were always careful to make a particular message clear:

These results indicate an antiangiogenic effect of this extract. The mechanisms of this antiangiogenic activity of P. paniculata should be further investigated.

That was from the abstract of this paper. In another paper the same authors suggest that Brazilian ginseng demonstrates an ability to slow cell-growth, but it does not demonstrate any ability to mediate cell-signaling, suggesting a future path of research for brazilian ginseng’s chemopreventive mechanism. Another study treated human breast cells with a Pfaffia paniculata extract which resulted in a reduction in cell growth.

These studies are encouraging, but in the long run they are far from conclusive. Most of them were conducted with mice, and focused on a particular type of cell in a very controlled situation. You need a lot more research done on this sort of thing before you can say “X causes Y” with any sort of confidence.

Immune System Stimulation

Suma root has demonstrated an ability to increase immune cell production and overall immune system activity. Macrophages are large immune cells that act like garbage collectors in your body, and several studies have shown that macrophagic activity can increase when exposed to brazilian ginseng. Another type of molecule called a Natural Killer (NK) cell were produced in greater amounts in mice when given ginseng extract.

Overall, the research on suma root is a bit of an open book. There’s a bit of information that suggests its purported benefits have truth, but there isn’t an “a-ha” collection of studies that seals the deal.

Nich,thanks, and I’m glad you liked it. Suma’s an impressive herb, and an interesting one too. Most of the research done on it is from latin America, but I find its chemopreventive properties the most interesting.

Jonathan,
Thanks for the info. There isn’t much on “suma” and I liked your short and to the point approach. I was going to do a pubmed research next. You saved me that step I also contacted a few herb places I have purchased from and they don’t carry suma root. If you were to purchase it – where would you go? Its always a question to ensure you are getting quality stuff with true bioavailability and not just wasting your money. It seems you wrotr this article almost a year ago – any new info since?
Thanks
Amir

Dear Jonathan, i started using Suma Root a few months ago after a friend suggested it to me. I read in several sites about the benefits of suma root, but the reason i took it for is as a workout supplement (to increase muscle mass and help me burn fat). i read what you wrote (which was in no other site i searched (not that i searched tooo much before bumping on your site) and that is great. But my question is, does suma root (10gramms, 3 times a day) really helps on gaining muscle mass and lose fat or not?

Thanks for the comment, but there are several plants that are considered ginseng that do not belong to the Panax family of plants. I agree that most people don’t realize that ginseng is a more generic term than most people perceive, but brazilian ginseng has always been a nickname for suma.

Why is it that whenever studies are been conducted on any natural plant that claim to have benefits,that the studies are always halted and not been investigated further?Could it be that if these test proves to be true that the windfall of money going into the coffers of the Pharmaceutical companies and the medical fraternity as a whole will be signifcantly reduced?These are natural God given Herbs,i do not think we need scientific research to tell me that these must be good for the benefit of mankind.People need to start using these things regularly,we just may see a reduction in chronic ailments and deadly Cancers.

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Jonathan Bechtel is health enthusiast and chief writer for Health Kismet, a nutritional supplement company that manufactures green, red and purple nutrient powders. Find him on Google+.

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